Pleasure For Pleasure (35 page)

“With you, I'm not Hellgate,” he told her, knowing she wasn't really listening. “I'm not some dissolute rake, sleeping with anything with two legs. I'm going to turn the Mayne stables into something people remember for decades. And I'm going to—”

“For God's sake!” she said, her eyes snapping open. “Garret Langham, are you actually talking about your stables—
now
?”

He looked down at her. Her lips were pouting a dark cherry color from all his kisses. He had one hand curved around her breast and the other between her legs, and her eyes were wild and loving and desperate with need, all at once.

“Well,” he told her, easily picking up her hips and positioning her just so. And then letting her slip down on him,
inch by inch. “I thought we could—” he had to take a breath “—talk about our breeding program.”

“You're lucky to have me,” Josie told him against his lips. Then she nipped his lower lips and wound her arms around his shoulders.

“I know it,” he said.

She was setting the pace, making his blood race, making him feel as untamed as a tiger. Her hair tumbled down her back, unruly and soft. She cupped her hands around his face. “I should kill you for that water trick.”

“Don't,” he gasped. “I don't think that…ghosts have—” But he was done talking. So he just kissed her into silence, his own sweet Josie, his beloved, his wife.

T
he party to celebrate the debut of the book that everyone said would be the publication of the century had already been going on for two hours when the Regent stamped to the front of the room to make a few remarks. He was holding a signed copy, bound in crimson leather and studded with pearls (the printing press operated by Lucius Felton had moved into luxury bindings with great success).

Harry Grone was hurriedly scribbling notes for
The Tatler
.
The Regent's speech brought a tear to every eye,
he wrote.
The way he talked of his beloved daughter, Our Mourned Princess, was deemed most affecting. The Regent then did the inexpressible honor of giving the memoir's author, Darlington, a royal embrace. As our readers remember,
Grone
noted,
Darlington was knighted a few weeks ago for his work on the Princess's biography.

Sir Charles Darlington took the stage and thanked the Regent in the most fulsome of terms. He then turned to his wife, Lady Griselda…
Grone paused. He didn't approve of the fact that her ladyship was in company while visibly
enceinte,
but he supposed he had to change with the times. Still, he wasn't going to mention such a thing in
The Tatler
.
Darlington said he'd written the memoir for his wife, and that she was
—What did he say? “The possessor of his heart”? Grone sighed. His hearing wasn't all it could be, and he'd rather Darlington stuck to simple Anglo-Saxon words.

Everyone was most affected by his obvious devotion for his wife,
he finished.

Perhaps if Grone had glanced to the back of the room, he might have changed his mind. For there stood four Essex sisters and their husbands. True, they clapped wildly to celebrate Darlington's book.

But Josie, the Countess of Mayne, was giggling madly during Darlington's speech. Her husband had his arms around her waist and he kept whispering in her ear, clearly trying to hush her into silence.

“Be still, you minx!” Mayne whispered.

“It's just such twaddle,” she whispered back.

“Yes, but did you hear how many leather-bound copies Felton is printing?” Mayne asked her. “Darlington's twaddle is beloved by thousands.”

She leaned back against him, loving the fact that she could feel his enthusiasm straight through the floating silk of her gown. “Garret…” she whispered, wiggling against him.

“Do you want to make a sight of me?” he growled in her ear.

She leaned her head back on his shoulder, bringing her lips just under his. The Earl of Mayne was never a man who
cared much about cleaning up his black reputation. And he couldn't ignore an invitation like that.

He whisked his wife about and began kissing her as if they weren't in a room full of her sisters, as if the Regent wasn't just before them, as if newsmen weren't making notes for gossip columns, as if the world wasn't going to end someday.

Because none of that mattered, not when Mayne had Josie, his own delicious, laughing Josie, just where she needed to be.

In the circle of his arms.

Three years later

B
loody hell,” Josie gasped. “This is awful. This is—This is worse than anything. I'm done. Done! Done, I tell you!” She was shrieking now.

Tess wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You'll be all right, darling, I promise it. Just calm down.”

“Calm down. Calm down!” Josie swung around. “Stop laughing!”

“I'm not laughing,” Annabel said, straightening her mouth quickly. “I was just remarking to Imogen that—”

“There's no call to remark anything!” Josie snapped. “I truly—” She broke off. “Oh—oh—oh—
bloody hell
!”

There was a knock on the door and Annabel opened it. “Hello, Mayne!” she said cheerfully.

“I heard her shouting.” His face was stark white and his eyes looked haggard. “Is she in much pain? May I see her?”

“I don't see why not. There's nothing much happening yet. It's far too early. We keep telling her that nothing will happen for hours and hours, but you know Josie. She's not patient.”

Annabel swung open the door to reveal Josie bent over, clinging to Tess as if her elder sister were a raft in the middle of a storm.

“Josie,” Mayne said hoarsely, striding over to her. “Are you all right?”

She turned around and swept the hair out of her eyes. “Of course I'm not all right. I'm dying here. Dying!”

Tess stepped back and Mayne wrapped his arms around his wife. “I would do anything for you. Would you like me to rub your back?”

Imogen grinned at Annabel. “Don't you love it when men forget to be the lord of the castle for a moment or two?”

Annabel actually lived in a castle, and her deep chuckle was infectious. “After each of our children, Ewan has sworn that he will never put me through such a thing again.”

“Good thing you have that huge bar on your bedchamber door,” Imogen said with a little snort. “Although I can't think why you're looking so round, Annabel, if you've taken up a life of chastity.”

Annabel grinned. “It's my natural state,” she said. But the hand she curved over her tummy said something different.

Mayne was feeling much better now that he had Josie in his arms. It was pure agony pacing the corridor and knowing she was in pain. “I'm here now,” he said into her ear.

“I don't like this,” Josie said, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I'd like it to be over now.”

“Well, it won't be,” Tess said. “We have hours left. Mayne, you really ought to leave.”

“I'm not leaving,” Mayne said. “If Josie has to endure hours more of this, I'm not going anywhere.” There was a mulish, frantic look to his eyes. “There are too many people in here.”

Without another word, Mayne whisked his wife into the luxurious little dressing room off the master bedchamber and closed the door behind them.

“Well, for goodness' sake,” Tess said. “Should we allow that?”

“There's a bed in there,” Annabel said. “Perhaps he can talk her into having a little rest.”

Griselda entered the bedchamber. “Where on earth has Josie gone?”

“Oh, Mayne took her into the dressing room for a bit of a cuddle,” Annabel said comfortably. “Have a seat, darling.”

“I'm not the one in labor,” Griselda objected. But she had a golden-haired cherub asleep in the crook of her arm, so she sank into a chair with a happy sigh.

Behind the door they could hear Josie's voice rising to a shriek. She was swearing again. “I was far more ladylike during my first labor,” Annabel told them.

Imogen laughed outright.

“No, it's true,” her sister protested. “I only swore…once in a while.”

“I didn't have time to swear,” Imogen said. “I was too breathless generally carrying on. Once was enough, to my mind. And Rafe's. I thought he had aged ten years when I finally was allowed to see him.”

“How long were you in labor with Samuel?” Griselda asked Annabel. “I still feel terrible that you were off by yourself in Scotland. Imogen and I should have stayed with you.”

“I had Nana,” Annabel said. “She was of the opinion that a laboring mother's mind should be kept off the subject, so she told me ribald jokes. I did try telling one of Nana's jokes to Josie a few minutes ago, but she just grew abusive. In fact, we had to send the midwife downstairs, as she was looking quite shocked at Josie's language.”

At that moment they all heard Josie's voice snapping something from behind the dressing room door. Tess started to rise, but Annabel grabbed her arm. “Josie is doing so much better with Mayne there, and she does have hours to go. Her labor only just started. She would do
better if she didn't waste so much energy swearing about it.”

At that moment Josie was lying on the little cot in her dressing room, wiggling around to try to make her back stop hurting so much. Even inbetween the contractions—not that there seemed to be much time inbetween anymore—her back hurt like the devil.

“Is it unbearable?” Mayne croaked. He was sitting beside her, holding her hands as hard as he could. His hair was tossed every which way, and if she wasn't in such pain she would have laughed at him.

“Not quite,” she said through clenched teeth. For some reason she felt like arching her back, so she did that. “But another five hours of this will be intolerable.”

“Perhaps it won't take so long,” Mayne said, his face growing even whiter.

Josie felt as if she couldn't quite keep her mind on the conversation. It was as if her body was turning itself inside out. Really…how could this go on for another five hours? “Griselda was in labor for
ten
hours,” she gasped, holding her husband's hands so tightly that she felt as if his bones were shifting.

“I'm here with you,” he said. His eyes were so beautiful, looking down at her, that Josie would have smiled, except she couldn't. All she could do was arch her back again and pant a little.

“I thought there was supposed to be a break between the pains,” she said a moment later.

“Do you want to speak to your sisters?” Mayne said, not moving.

She could read his eyes as well as she knew her own heart. If Tess, and Imogen, and Annabel entered the room, they'd make him leave, and it wouldn't be the two of them anymore.

“They said it would take hours,” she said. “But I just—just—” She broke off.

Mayne swept the hair off her face. “What, darling?”

“I forgot. I—I—”

Mayne leaned over her. “Darling,
what
—”

A second later Mayne instinctively jumped to his feet, but Josie still had hold of one of his hands. “No!” she panted. She had instinctively planted her legs on the bed. She arched her back again, clinging to his hand with all her strength.

“Tess!” Mayne bawled, looking down at his beautiful, sweaty wife. “All of you! Get the midwife!”

He heard laughter outside the door, and then he dropped Josie's hand, whether she wished it or not.

The door opened and Annabel's voice said, “Now, Mayne, you have to understand that it takes—”

But that was one moment too late. Because what Annabel saw when she opened the door was the earl holding a small, messy baby who opened her eyes, blinked her foolishly long eyelashes (she took after her father), and let out a bellow of rage (she took after her mother as well). And Mayne, the sophisticated, urbane Earl of Mayne, looked down at his little daughter and began to cry. Josie was sitting up and holding out her hands.

Annabel closed the door again.

She said, “Imogen and Tess.”

They looked up. They were playing with Griselda's baby's toes. “You know how we assured Josie that labor lasted hours and hours?”

Tess started to her feet. “You don't mean—”

“Would you please ring that bell?” Annabel asked. “Because there's a baby in there.”

“Oh Lord!” Tess shrieked, pulling the rope so hard that it came off in her hand.

The midwife grandly swept them to the side and entered the dressing room. They almost crowded in after her, but Tess stopped Imogen at the door. “Give them a moment,” she whispered.

Griselda took her baby back to the nursery, but finally
they couldn't wait any longer, and Annabel opened the door again, Imogen and Tess at her shoulders.

Josie was propped up against the back of the small bed, looking as beautiful as only a woman whose labor lasted exactly forty minutes can look. Snuggled in her arms was a scrap of a baby, looking up at her with an expression of fascinated indignation, as if she didn't quite know what to make of her mother. And seated on the edge of the bed, with one arm around Josie and his hand on their daughter, was Garret Langham, Earl of Mayne.

He looked so happy that Annabel's heart turned over to see him.

Without saying a word, she wreathed her arms around Tess and Imogen, and the three of them stood together and smiled…and cried a little bit too.

“She's so beautiful,” Josie told them, her eyes glowing. “She's the most beautiful baby I ever saw. She looks just like Garret.”

“No, she doesn't,” Mayne said, trailing a finger over his daughter's cheek. “She's the spitting image of her mother.”

“What will you name her?” Annabel asked. Her newest little niece began sucking on her fist with a kind of intensity that suggested she might be interested in learning how to nurse.

“Cecily,” Josie said, “after Mayne's aunt.”

“This is the best gift that anyone has ever given me,” her husband said, and his eyes were suspiciously bright again.

“I wish Mother were here,” Tess said. They were all clustered around the baby now, plumped on their knees. Little Cecily had curled her hand around Annabel's finger, and Imogen looked as if she were rethinking her one-baby rule.

“I'm sure she's watching us,” Annabel said softly.

“While I would be happy to have met our mother, it was
the three of you who raised me,” Josie said. “I always felt safe and loved. And”—she was crying now, tears sliding down onto Cecily's blanket—“I can never thank you enough. Because somehow I ended up with everything I most wanted in the world. I don't think anyone's ever been as happy as I am at this moment.”

Cecily was encased in a circle of arms, tears, and hugs. She peered about blearily, and then realized that
she
wasn't happy. And if
she
wasn't happy, then why were all these people laughing, acting as if the world was a perfect place? Something was wrong…Something was terribly wrong. And no one had noticed.

She filled her lungs with a sense of righteous indignation.

She aimed to teach a lesson that Josie and Mayne, like every new set of parents, had yet to learn. When one turns over one's life to a small scrap of a tyrant, pure happiness is fleeting.

And yet its deeper cousin, joy, stays with you for life.